Posted
by
Zonk
on Sunday July 24, 2005 @06:36PM
from the gotta-love-them-butterflies dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "The BBC has an article about a dramatic discovery in the quest for understanding evolution. From the article: 'Why one species branches into two is a question that has haunted evolutionary biologists since Darwin. Given our planet's rich biodiversity, "speciation" clearly happens regularly, but scientists cannot quite pinpoint the driving forces behind it. Now, researchers studying a family of butterflies think they have witnessed a subtle process, which could be forcing a wedge between newly formed species.'"

Are you mad? The question whether "God designed evolution" is totally out outside of science. It's a matter of faith, not knowledge. The only academic activity when you can seriously consider this is philosophy.

I'm a physicist and I believe in God. I believe that God created the world with the evolution, etc so that there would be a man in this world. I require no proof for that and neither do I expect science to provide me with any. In fact, I'd look very suspiciously at anyone pretending to have such "p

Bravo. As a militant agnostic, I couldn't agree more. I do not mind what someone believes or does not believe as long as they keep that seperate from science and politics. Belief in a god or gods is based on faith alone and the same is true of believing there is no god. Until either is provable, they shouldn't be included in discussion of laws or science, especially religious ideas masquerading as science such as intelligent design.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [as the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

Science starts from the standpoint that everything that can be observed can be explained. Religion starts from the standpoint that some things cannot be explained. The two are reconcilable only to the extent that ideas can be accepted without need of explanation -- in other words, Not Very Far At All.

The problem I have with the idea of "intelligent design" is that it breaks several important rules, not the least of which is the KISS principle. The need for an Intelligent Designer rests on the notion of Irreducible Complexity. But there is no irreducible complexity in nature. On the contrary, an Intelligent Designer would introduce irreducible complexity.

The Universe embodies the principle that simplicity is beauty. {Why does the pressure in a fluid act equally in all directions? Because it was simpler than favouring a particular direction. Why does light travel in straight lines? Because it was simpler that way. Why do men have nipples? Because it was too complicated for them not to.} If we take that logic to the extreme, it is simpler for the universe to have created itself somehow {and here I am making no assumptions about the process by which this might happen}, than for a creator to have been created as an intermediate step. My assertion is: There is no process that could have created a creator, that could not instead -- and more simply -- have created a fully-formed universe.

{The predominance of D- over L- enantiomers in nature is not evidence for Intelligent Design. It can be shown by analysis of potential reaction mechanisms that right-handed would favour right-handed and vice versa. It is probable that the primordial soup was close to racemic, but somehow more D- than L- proto-organisms survived and eventually L- forms became extinct. It ought to be possible to synthesise and culture the opposite enantiomer of an existing DNA sample, resulting in a "left handed clone". Pending the perfection of the necessary equipment, this must be left as an exercise for the reader:) It is of course possible that life on other planets could be wholly or predominantly left-handed.}

The argument against life being created by random chance ignores the obvious fact that the improbable event has already happened. In fact, given the sheer magnitude of the universe, it was close to inevitable that life would develop somewhere. Remember that the many necessary attempts were taking place in parallel, not in series {if you throw six dice at a time, the odds favour at least one of them being a six}. And not everything in the process is truly random: certain chemical elements are predisposed to bond in certain ways.

Remember also that radioactive decay events, which we know today trigger genetic mutation, would have been more common the further back in time we travel. We cannot know for certain {though we might infer from decay products} whether or not some especially radioactive isotope existed in the past but has become completely exhausted today.

{I realise that there are quite a few dangling "somehows" in this essay. It is not my intension to offer explanations for them here. These are "closing" rather than "opening" questions, which is to say that the answers will not in and of themselves raise further questions.}

IMO, the true scientist witholds judgement until the experiments have been done and the data is in front of them.

OK, bring on the experiments. Describe an experiment that can be used to disprove design in a given organism. If you are unable to do this, then -- at the most fundamental level -- ID is not amenable to the scientific method, and is not worth any further scientific enquiry.

Wave two pencils in front of a person, about 30cm apart. Then, have them cover one eye and step away slowly, while looking at one pencil tip, until they can't see other due to their blind spot.

Now, ask a squid to do the same thing.

Guess what? Squids have no blind spot, because the optic nerve and blood vessels connect to the eye without interrupting the potosensitive cells.

An intelligent designer (when hypothesizing that the designer was the same for both) would not have produced a defective eye for humans when they designed it properly the first time (only the day before).

Of course, not only humans have a blind spot; all vertbrates do. Likewise, many creatures other than squids do not suffer from blind spots-encumbered vision.

You can easily disprove intelligent design, because both "intelligent" and "design" (not to mention the other attributes of the particular designer that most folks seem to have in mind) imply certain conditions that their designs would have to exibit relative to other designs by that same author.

No No No... god INTENDED for us to have a blind spot, um... so that we can cast aside our gaze from the devil without actually having to turn our heads. Yeah, cause otherwise he might tempt us into things like drugs and HOMOSEXUALITY!!!! Those who are tempted simply don't have the faith to use their divinely granted blind spot!

I mean, there are some lines of reasoning you just can't argue against. I'm not saying they're correct, just that you can't productively form an argument that they'll listen to.

I think this is called the Anthropocentric Principle. It is definitely not proof of a "Big Mind behind it all". Of course the existence of such a thing can hardly be disproved.

If you prove or disprove something, you stop wondering about it. Your progress is halted. The trick is to keep wondering and go further.

Suppose we prove God's existence here and now, by a simple scientific method nobody can dispute and everybody test for themselves. Then what? What has that amounted to? It won't help this world one iota. The arguing and bombings will continue as before, maybe even worse.

You can live life based on God's existence, and in the very process you will create God within yourself. Wether you believe God is a bearded man up in the sky or a universal principle, doesn't matter. Arguing is only for people who cannot tolerate other opinions. In the process, you miss the other perspective and lose respect for others. Arguing about God, you make him a Thing. That misses the point entirely!

What matters is how you live life. Is it a struggle, or is it something beautiful and simple? The human values are the same for every religion and culture. We should nurture and cultivate them, in order to solve our differences and generally be more happy. It is really very simple knowledge, which the world is in need for at this time.

"What are the chances for life to live on this earth? If it were too cool, or too warm, all species would be extinct. A little closer- or farther from the sun, *poof*. A little more of this gas, or that, or different weights in the forces."

Logical fallacy.

If conditions were even slightly different at any point in the history of the universe, all current species would be extinct. You can't say our current ecosystem contains all possible species for every possible set of environmental conditions and physical laws, so you can't say that no life would exist, merely that our current form(s) of life wouldn't.

We evolved in these conditions - it's no surprise that we're extraordinarily tightly bound to them. You're confusing cause and effect.

For another example, riffle through a pack of cards and pick one. Put it back and do it again. You pick the four of clubs, followed by the ace of hearts. So what?

So what? At this point, the four of clubs is looking around and thinking "Wow, what are the odds, eh? The chances of me and Ace here existing are 1 in two thousand and four!. Yeah, but the chance of "two cards being picked" is pretty much 1:1 (leaving aside the possibilities of spontaneous combustion or weird quantum tunneling effects half-way through;-)

You're looking around, assuming this is the only way "life" could possibly ever evolve, and positing the fluke was down to an intelligent creator.

First off, we still don't have a complete understanding of what even constitutes "life", so you can't claim a definite conclusion of any kind. All you can do is construct theories, using rational, logical inference and falsifiable hypotheses.

Secondly, it could well be that "life" is merely an emergent property of a sufficiently complex organisation of matter left for a long enough time, in which case the chances of life appearing in the universe would be about 1:1.

Short answer: Science teaches us to adopt the leading falsifiable hypothesis only until a better one comes along. In other words, keep investigating, and don't ever assume you know the complete answer.

Religion teaches us unsubstantiated irrational heresay from thousands of years before the scientific method, and expects us to treat it as the final answer. In other words, shut up, sit down and stop asking awkward questions.

"I just know that there is a Big Mind behind it all."

No, you think there's a Big Mind behind it all. This is the central point of ID/creationism/religious zealotry of all types - a complete inability to differentiate between "know", "believe, based on the preponderance of evidence" and "believe, with no evidence whatsoever to support your conclusion".

I have no problem with someone believing whatever they like - it's when they mistake that for "knowing" and attempt to force their own irrational beliefs on others that I feel compelled to stand up.

"Then what's the point arguing about it? Like ants arguing about the demi-god roaming around the garden making large craters.."

Amen to that - it's essentially unknowable, so it's not science, but philosophy. If Creationists/ID-proponents wanted religion discussed in Philosophy I'd have no problem.

You see, religion is like a banana. It tastes good and does good. Our western modern society is actually based on this banana. However, in time people have thrown the banana and kept the skin. This has been an awful waste, because the skin is not edible and gives a stomach ache. But this makes people hold on to the skin even more, because now they've lost the banana! They even start arguing what part of the skin is "the best"..

Basically, "the skin" is symbols, traditions, flags, icons, etc. It's just a wrapping paper. You unwrap the package, and then throw away the wrapping, not the other way around.

Spirituality is what this banana consists of. It is based on direct experience. Everybody has some spirituality, even if it's just to accept that they have a daily life where they go to work and party on weekends. You cannot argue against somebody's direct experience..

Science is trying to make everybody agree on the same reality. Sadly however, in the process, science has thrown away much of the banana-core too, confusing it for the skin..

Basically, our whole "modern" society has thrown away the banana. The result is higher rates of depression, cancer, stress, suicides, etc. This is because of lack of spirituality and roots in this world. A feeling of alienation and that we don't belong here.

So you see, I accept both spirituality and science as complentary, thus my world is bigger than if I had just accepted one or the other.

What is needed at this time, is to globalize spirituality. Find a set of human values we all agree on and nurture and cultivate that, and cherish each other's different worldviews. Otherwise, the negative trends will just become worse.

An intelligent designer would create intelligent designs, with each feature designed perfectly to fit its intended purpose. Evolution would frequently produce borderline botches that are "just good enough".

While we see plenty of beauty and elegance, we also see large numbers of botches: mistakes no intelligent designer would ever make. Examples include the human back, which is flawed enough to keep chiropractors in business because we descend from four-legged creatures and the back isn't really optimized for walking on two legs. But there are bigger ones: the nerve that connects the larynx to the brain goes through the heart, both in the human and the giraffe. We have a blind spot in our eyes because of the way the optic nerve is connected, though it isn't hard to come up with a design that lacks this flaw.

Evolution will get rid of botches that interfere with survival and reproduction, but it's neutral with respect to botches that are just annoying.
And that's what we see.

When somebody makes an assertion, it is not the responsibility of the person who is being skeptical to disprove anything. I don't have to prove anything with a "not" in it.

You have misunderstood my post. I was asking that proponents of ID demonstrate how ID can be falsified. As I'm sure you know, falsifiability is one of the general prerequisites of any scientific hypothesis.

I'm not claiming that supporters of evolution must falsify ID; I'm asserting that supporters of ID must show how their own claims might be falsified by evidence from the natural world. If they cannot furnish a hypothetical situation in which there claims can conclusively be falsified, then their claims cannot be evaluated within a scientific framework.

People who dismiss concepts like 'intelligent design' out of hand may often like to refer to themselves as scientific, but in fact dismissing something like that out of hand is the very reverse of scientific.

Your confusing dismissing after evaluating and dismissing out of hand. Havign 0 predictive power, 100% made up rationalization, and lacking any evidence it's very scientific to reject that theory.

Perhaps a redefinition of science is in order, something closer to the definition of religion... 'Thou shalt not challenge the orthodoxy.'

A common logical fallacy used by pro-ID people. How ever using the exact same criteria you use to evaluate all scientific theory, ID fails very very badly. The scientific community is not like the libral literary community, everybody is out to "revolutionize" the community with a new idea. It might be contriversial but if it passes the tests placed on it, it will eventually be accepted.

Mutations occur, and when they occur in parallel for members of the same species, and those mutations survive into succeeding generations, you achieve speciation. End of story. What am I missing?

Now, if you want to talk about butterflies and evolution, then answer for me how it is that butterflies could have evolved in the first place. You're talking about a two-stage organism here, one stage does nothing but eat, the other stage does nothing but procreate. Which came first?

If it was the caterpillar, how is it that it suddenly figures out how to create a cocoon, lay dormant for a winter, then emerge as a completely different creature? They obviously had the means for procreation on their own, so why bother becoming a butterfly?

If it was the butterfly, why even bother with the caterpillar stage? If you can already fly around and stuff, why bother crawling?

People cite all these other examples trying to bring down evolution, and to me they never succeed, it's obvious to me for instance how eyes evolved. But caterpillars turning into butterflies still boggles my mind.--Why didn't you know? [tinyurl.com]

No, it's non-obvious. You missed the point--the cohabiting species have special marks which allow them to choose to mate only with their own species instead of interbreeding. It isn't chance, it's choice.

As for the caterpillar/butterfly thing, it is mysterious, but I'd like to point out that some of the simplest animals on earth go through life stages. Jellyfish, for example, hydrae, and many other invertebrates go through various stages of life. Amphibians do this as well.

As far as I can tell, the reason behind it is a reproductive strategy. The butterfly, and other insects, has hundreds of offspring, only a few of which will survive to adulthood and then have hundreds more offspring.

Humans do not go through such dramatic stages as a butterfly, but a butterfly might be amazed to find out that humans survive for 13 years before reaching reproductive age!

IANAEB (Evolutionary Biologist), so I'm just going by the article here, but it seems like the process itself was obvious (or at least pre-supposed) as you suggest, it's the chance to witness it in nature that's exciting here.

I can't really answer your butterfly question, but I can point out that every insect has multiple stages of life. Flies start out as maggots,... that's all i got. IANAEntomologyst either.

While we're asking the tough questions, it seems like the one big gun the Divine Design people have left is in the differing number of genes between species. If all offspring have the same number of genes as their parents, and all species on earth are evolved from one original life form, shouldn't all creatures have the same number of genes? Are there any theories out there regarding how genes are added or subtracted over time?

"If all offspring have the same number of genes as their parents, and all species on earth are evolved from one original life form, shouldn't all creatures have the same number of genes? Are there any theories out there regarding how genes are added or subtracted over time?"

There are many mechanisms for adding, changing, and subtracting genetical information (translocations, mutations, deletations, insertions, non-disjunction etc etc. In the vast majority of cases the results are death for the offspring but in a rare few cases it results in viable and even rarer, a better adapted offspring. For an everyday example: People with Downs Syndrome have either an extra 23rd chromosome or a robertsonian translocation with pretty much the same added genetic material as a result. That means they have roughly 2 percent more genes than other people...

I believe you mean the 21st chromosome. The 23rd chromosome is the sex chromosome, and the effects of having an extra one depend on the resulting genotype. The possibilities are XYY, XXY, and XXX (gasp!). If I remember correctly, the XYY variety typically dies very young (it may not survive to birth.) The XXY flavor results in Klinefelter's syndrome, which causes sterility (the person is male, but during puberty the testicles do not fully develop) and slight deficits in speech and motor learning (which can be overcome by playing sports and having good teachers). I can't remember what happens with the XXX variety.
So there's more than you ever wanted to know about Trisomy-23. To make this reply relevant to the post, trisomy typically happens through nondisjunction, in which two copies of a chromosome do not separate from each other during meiosis (this happens in the sex cells of on of the parents.)

Premise #1 is false. One common way for plants to speciate is to double their chromosome count (not individual genes, entire sets of chromosomes). Humans are diploid (two sets of chromosomes, one from each parent); some plants are quadruploid or hexaploid (SIX sets of chromosomes, three from each parent).

Are there any theories out there regarding how genes are added or subtracted over time?

Then you have crossover mutations. When chromosomes are duplicated in mitosis, the two new DNA strands are wound up with the originals and have to be untangled. This is done by enzymes which snip one strand pair, allow the other to pass through the gap and repair the bond afterwards. Sometimes this process isn't perfect, and a DNA strand pair gets part of the other's chromosome or loses a chunk. Entire genes can be lost or duplicated this way. Duplicated genes allow one of the pair to mutate and take up new functions, and it turns out that a whole lot of biological "inventions" come from genes which appear to have come from other, older genes.

Then you've got tandem sequence repeats... which is a whole 'nother story, but they are very susceptible to DNA copying errors and you can evolve e.g. a very different curve of a dog's snout in a century by selecting for different lengths of tandem repeats.

Yes, all this stuff is on the web. Everything you need to completely and authoritatively refute every argument made by creationists (the "intelligent design" brand or the traditional) is on the web.

(Okay, who's the Slashcode nitwit whose filter cancels the <i> tag when a list is started?)

Retroviruses have to insert functonal DNA or they don't reproduce, and they have inserted DNA into the genome. Many species (including humans) have "fossilized" endogenous retroviruses. IIRC, one of the pieces of evidence which irrefutably clinches the case for common descent of apes and humans is that we share some endogenous retroviruses.

My favorite refutation of the bogus Second Law criticism is a seed in some soil in a terrarium. You add nothing but maximally-entropic hydrogen and oxygen in the form of water, maximally-entropic carbon and oxygen in the form of CO2, and sunlight. The seed will sprout and proceed to reduce the entropy of those raw materials in its own growth. The fundies who assert the 2nd Law don't realize that the system creates huge amounts of entropy; it's just leaving in the form of the ~300K waste heat that was once the 5700K solar blackbody spectrum.

In higher order animals, such as Orcas, behavioral differences can bring about the separation into two species. There are two distinct groups of Orcas, those which hunt fish and those which hunt seals. These two behaviors are fairly different, as fish hunting Orcas herd schools of fish to make consuming them easier. Seal hunting orcas are know to "dive" several feet onto ice flows to catch seals. They also thrash seals around in the water to subdue them. These two groups do not mix as their learned behaviors and sub-environs are different. It is easy to imagine that these two groups are slowly diverging, as they engage in different diets, breed within their own groups and engage in different physical activities.

Of course, I am a physicist and a mathematician. All of my bio-knowledge comes from The Discovery Channel.

It is easy to imagine that these two groups are slowly diverging, as they engage in different diets, breed within their own groups and engage in different physical activities.

That might actually apply to humans as well. I mean take Conservatives and Liberals. They engage in different physiclal activities and (mostly) breed within their own groups. So will the two eventually evolve into seperate species, Homo Conservativis and Homo Liberalis? Probably, however, due to the high population denisty among humans they will also be unable to escape having to interact with each other. So the two resultant species and their behavioral patterns will influence each others evolution won't they? I mean you would for example expect the Homo Conservativis to evolve sophisticated selective hearing in order to avoid hearing anything that Homo Liberals might say that contradicts with their religious ideas while the Homo Liberals will grow thick Neanderthal like skulls due to Homo Conservatives incessantly thumping theim on the head with a Bible.

I know your comment is more of a joke and less a serious comment. But just want to point out something I've read before. Beauty is actually average... that is, people with average measurements - distance between the eyes, facial features, etc., etc. are perceived to be more beautiful than those with un-average features. Perhaps being average also means you are the most healthy and there are exceptions of course. Because of this, it's possible that ugly + ugly = beautiful, especially if the two ugly's are on opposite ends from average.

Another difference between the two groups is that fish hunting orcas are always chattering amongst themselves, but mammal hunting orcas are very quiet, because their pray is smart enough or has ears enough to pick up on the yammering.

Or that the seals can distinguish between the fish eaters and the seal eaters. This was in a recent National Geographic (last few months I believe) -- but the seal eating orcas look a little different and the seals flip out when they see them (understandably).

Historically they do. I don't recall if there were ever tigers in Africa but there were certainly lions in Asia (and indeed in Europe). However, they prefer different habitats (forest vs grassland), and have different hunting patterns. Which came first (habitat preference or hunting method) is an interesting (and probably unresolvable) question.

The point isn't that tigers and lions would interbreed in the wild, the point is that tigers and lions are so genetically similar that their branch point from a common ancestor isn't that long ago, and the branching (and speciation) occurred because of the different habitat preferences and because tiger ancestors preferred to mate with tiger ancestors rather than lion ancestors.

(The fact that tigers and lions can mate and produce not only viable but occasionally fertile offspring throws a wrench into the usual definition of "species". Many of the anti-evolutionist arguments boil down to semantics rather than biology, so it's worth noting where these definitions break down.)

You're talking about a two-stage organism here, one stage does nothing but eat, the other stage does nothing but procreate

Think of the chrysalis as puberty for the caterpillar. I'm actually envious--I'm sure many of us would have just as soon lived out our teenage years laying in bed, sleeping, twenty-four hours a day until we were ready to emerge into the wonderful world of twenty-year-old, sexually mature adults instead of being pressured to explore the opposite sex while at the same time dealing with v

Mutations occur, and when they occur in parallel for members of the same species, and those mutations survive into succeeding generations, you achieve speciation. End of story. What am I missing?

It seems to me that you are just completely glossing over the non-obvious part. The part where the members with the mutations stop reproducing with the rest of the non-mutated species for long enough that the two branches are unable to breed with each other at all after a certain point. Why should a mutation stop breeding with members who haven't mutated. Or if it is built in to the behaviour that the species will not breed with mutants then how do the mutants not have this behaviour so that they may breed with each other. It is this stage that is being observed in the article.

Your butterfly question seems cute but quaint. Really, I think if it seems obvious to you how eyes evolved then I doubt you fully understand the problem. There are just too many very bright people out there who are interested in this as a problem (I'm talking about people who believe in evolution but can't explain all the mechanics) for it to be trivial.

Here is what I think about butterfly (and any creature that goes through a laval/pupation stage)

By being born with little more than the ability to eat and move to the next meal they save the parent a huge amount of energy. Usually a parent creature has to drop a lot of their energy and food into incubating or laying an egg that will feed the young until they reach a fully matured stage.

With butterflies, flies and most other insects it becomes more efficient to lay an egg with only enough energy to create

While we're on the subject, I might as well reply to myself and point out a selective advantage to multi-stage lifecycles, namely that the different stages do not compete with each other: they eat different food, and fill different evolutionary niches. This means that in times of scarcity there is little advantage in adults behaving like those of some non-metamorphising species, who will kill youngsters, as they are in direct competition with them for resources.

It is also very unlikely that full-blown metamorphosis arrived on the scene ex nilho. There is apparently ample evidence in the historical record for incomplete metamorphosis, via a 'nymph' stage.

A caterpillar is just the larval stage of the butterfly. Just about every insect goes through such a stage (see maggots and grubs), so this particular adaptation most likely precedes the existence of butterflies by millions of years.

My guess (having about as much expertise on the subject as you seem to) is that insects that hatched prematurely instead of staying in the egg until they reached their final form were more likely to survive because they were moving targets dispersed over a wide range instead of

It's actually even simpler than that: insects, because of their hard exoskeletons, usually moult (or shed their hard body) a couple of times throughout their lives: it's the only way they can grow.

Some insects (e.g. locusts and cockroaches) basically look more adult (bigger, better wings, etc) with each instar (period between moults.) This guys need to act like adults from the time they are hatched (although some species actually have the parents nurse until the offspring are developed enough.)

For insects laid on carrion, ripe fruit, edible plants, and other transient food sources, time is of the essence: hatch fast, be a sac with a mouth, eat all you can, then pupate and get to the complex, energy-expensive adult stage in one moult.

Note that simple cocoons are nothing more than hardened/dried outer skin - it's just a moult.

This is why I love science,new and exciting discoveries every day and answers to so many interesting unanswered questions. A very welcome change to the religious people's "God did it! now go pray".

I am sure that given enough time, scientists can plug holes in the theory of evolution and answer questions that critics throw at it like. Remember, a theory can always be changed and disproved by evidence unlike intelligent design which can't be disproved(and no one seems to have proved it either).

And before someone starts an intelligent design rant, please remember, unprovable assumptions like 'there's a naturally occuring ipod on the dark side of the moon, since you can't disprove it, it exists' have no place in science at all. Also remember, science is self criticizing and self correcting, read up on the criticism on string theory if you have any doubts.

A very welcome change to the religious people's "God did it! now go pray".

Please, don't lump all "religious people" together under the umbrella of fundamentalists. I know that there are a very large number of people out there, including myself, who find no problem with saying "God did it! I'd like to find out how!" And discovering that evolution (which is really a fascinating process, and deserving of study) is our current best guess. I find no contradiction between the idea that God created the world and the idea that evolution happened and happens. And I know that there are a lot of people out there who agree with me. If I had to guess, I would say that the majority of "religious people" haven't really thought about it, but among those who have, the group who claims incompatibility between creation and evolution is a vocal minority.

You are correct that undisprovable statements are not science. However, this does not necessarily preclude them being true. I heartily agree that the fact they are undisprovable does not make them true, but neither does it prevent them from being true. Not that you claimed it did; I'm just throwing that out there in addition.

It has been repeated again and again that theory of evolution discusses how evolution works, not if evolution takes place or not. Kind of like the theory of gravity, which does not discuss if gravity exists or not since we can see it all around us, but how gravity works.

Similary there is a LOT of evidence for evolution all around us. The theory part is just how it works and this is a new step in that direction

Also, I meant 'undisprovable theory of intelligent design' not 'unprovable'. Evolution is easi

Sorry for the second reply, but I failed to address this gem:
" the sheer numeric improbability of evolution is science"

Suppose u have a huge roulette wheel with 10,000 numbers around it and u spin it and it arrives at a number, lets say 6283. The probability of it arriving at 6283 is 1/10000. But it did happen didn't it?

Life on earth is similar to it and if you want to look at all the failed attempts, take a telescope and see how many planets and stars have inhospitable planets. Those show the other cases in which the right mix didn't work out.

Also, remember that once evolution gets started, it's anything but random and probabistic. Natural selection and survival of the fittest pushes life to better and more complex forms.

First two minor points, then I'll get to the real subject, the math of evolution.

theory is a theory my friend

Every field of science is a theory, my friend. Everything from the theory of the atom to the theory of zymosis (that's fermentaion). You may as well try to attack relativity as being "just a theory".

sortof like the unprovable assumption of evolution?????

What unprovable assumption of evolution? Evolution fundamentally says that if if you have heritable variation and mutations and selection pressures on that variation then you will get evolution over generations. This is trivially observable fact. There is no genuine scientific dispute over biological evolution exacly because there is so much evidence that cross checks and cross validates across so many feilds, both current observations and study of prehistorical evidence left behind. Trying to even scratch the surface of this mountain of evidence in this post would be hopeless. If you are questioning the quantity and quality of the evidence, I suggest you either crack open a text book on the subject or at least browse the talkorigins [talkorigins.org] website. It's all well documented if you actually question the issue. If you don't truely question the issue and you instead simply reject the entire subject on non-rational grounds, well obviously you're not going to be swayed by something silly like actual evidence and actual science.

Anyway, the real issue I wanted to address was this one:

the sheer numeric improbability of evolution

Correction, the sheer numeric CERTIANTY. There's powerful mathematics to evolution, powerful effects going on that you don't hear about in the common explanations of evolution. The common idea of evolution is as a sequence of individual beneficial mutations, like climbing a ladder. If that's how evolution actually worked then critics would be right, it would have been mathematically impossible for evolution to produce the incredible complexity we see today.

To show the true mathematical power of evolution I will first abandon that "ladder climbing" of beneficial mutaions. In fact lets assume that every single mutation that occurs is either neutral or harmful. I'll demonstrate that we still get the real and powerful mechanism of evolution, the math of evolution.

A good place to start is with the common complaint of creationists that mutation and evolution "cannot create information". Well in the initial mutation phase they are right. When a mutation occurs it introduces noise, it tends to degrade information. But look what happens the moment that mutation gets passed on to an offspring. That mutation is now no longer random noise, it now carries a small bit on information. It carries a little tag saying "this is a nonfatal mutation". The presence of this mutation in the offspring is new and created information, the discovery and living record of a new nonfatal mutation. Over time the population builds up a LIBRARY of nonfatal mutations. This library is a vast accumulation of new information.

That information actually undergoes even more processing and synthesis. Over generations beneficial mutations would obviously multiply, but we're assuming there are none of those here. However entirely neutral mutations will also tend to accumulate and multiply. Nearly harmless mutations would also accumulate and multiply to a lesser extent. Somewhat harmful mutations will even accumulate, and extremely harmful-but-nonfatal mutations will pop up and disappear at the rarest frequencies. So not only do we build up a library of nonfatal mutations, the mutations get tagged with a tagged with a frequency, the percentage of the population carrying that mutation. Each mutation is tagged with a measurement. Every mutation now carries a cost/benefit information tag at the population level. The best ones have a high percentage representation and the most harmful ones have a near

Second, the AC that also responded to you is right. Newton is never 100% right. However, with the speeds, forces, etc. we experience on a regular basis, Newton is so absurdly close to being correct that it works just as well as Einstien, and the errors that simplification introduces are more or nothing compared to measurement errors.

The article referred to here is typical: we believe that speciation drives evolution, have done so since we believed that those incredibly intricate sets of interwoven biological factories called cells were just little bags of slime. Just now, after more than a century of holding this as nothing less than an article of faith, we think we might be seeing it happening. Maybe.

There's a key point here that you're missing: When a scientist says "believe" he means something different than when a creationist says it. For a creationist, "believe" means "I have faith that this is so, not because of any empirical evidence, but because it's what I've been told by 'good people' who assure me they're telling the Truth."

On the other hand, for a scientist "believe" means "I think that this is true because it's a logical conclusion drawn from occurances which I or someone else have directly observed. Additionally, if presented with compelling evidence (i.e. direct observation) that refutes this conclusion, I will cease to believe it."

That's the key here: evolution is the best explanation (so far) for what we observe without relying on "because somebody said so." That's why it's a theory: It's a conjecture derived from observable facts through logic. Moreover, this also explains why creationism isn't a theory: it relys on assumptions that cannot be derived from observable facts (at least, so far).

And you know what? Each time something like that is noticed, it's written off with a statement along the lines of "we'll eventually find a way of explaining this with evolution, never you mind". That statement is an act of faith. "There's no evidence for it here, but I believe in evolution, brother, how about you?"

If you apply what I said about scientists' use of "believe" you should now understand why this isn't the "act of faith" you think it is. The scientists aren't saying they disregard the facts in front of them; they're saying that those facts aren't enough to disprove evolution and that they also don't have any scientific explanation that fits the facts better than evolution. Creationism is right out from the beginning because, as I've said already, it isn't a rigorous, logically-deduced argument to begin with.

If you can think of an explanation that fits all observed facts better than evolution and doesn't rely on Faith, then you can start complaining about some kind of conspiracy among scientists to reject anything that's not evolution.

The other mechanism that can theoretically divide a species is "reproductive isolation". This occurs when organisms are not separated physically, but "choose" not to breed with each other thereby causing genetic isolation, which amounts to the same thing.

Does this mean that geeks are soon to speciate and then ultimate fail as the male/female ratio is horrendously out of wack?

No, it means that the geek species will survive the skewed gender ratio through adopting a polygamist model where one geek girl has a harem of 50 geek boys, using them as her semen producers and sex toys as she pleases while she is not solving differential equations or writing code.

Racism is a *very* touchy subject, and I may get flamed just for bringing it up, but doesn't this sound like butterfly racism? If this were, in fact, a provable, natural, biological mechanism, then, wouldn't we, as biological organisms, be falling prety to much the same effect? Isn't racism a social form of speciation?

What impact would this have on the ACLU? Hiring quotas? The civil rights movement in general?

>>What impact would this have on the ACLU? Hiring quotas? The civil rights movement in general?

Seems like the concept of Social Darwinism [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_darwinism [wikipedia.org] ]. Pop philosophers tried to aply the findings of Darwin to modern social stratification as a sort of apology for the rich.

But since when have humans played by the rules of nature like that? We don't eat our young just because other species do. We don't appoint a single woman as the breeder for a group like ants

Of course it is. A human "race" is simply a group of people who, for whatever reason (ideological, religious, geographical, etc.) mated within their own group. This allows mutations which occur within that group to stay there, rather than get folded over the entire genome. Continue this for long enough, and some of those mutations will result in situations where members of different races can't reproduce with each other.

Racism is a *very* touchy subject, and I may get flamed just for bringing it up, but doesn't this sound like butterfly racism? If this were, in fact, a provable, natural, biological mechanism, then, wouldn't we, as biological organisms, be falling prety to much the same effect? Isn't racism a social form of speciation?

Yes and no. The problem lies in the definition of racism. Many people have taken it so far as to say that all people are equal... obvious stuff as skin color aside, and referring to skin

Firstly, sexuality and racism are different subjects. These butterflies are more sexually attracted to certain markings or patterns, which indicate the partner is of the same species. They aren't hiring other butterflies for jobs, nor pulling them up for minor driving offenses.

There is no racism in finding yourself sexually attracted to certain racial characteristics such as skin colour.

You ask, "Isn't racism a social form of speciation". No. Racism is racism. There are many reasons why this racist segregration would not lead to speciation, even if it were not a morally repulsive proposition:

1) No reinforcement, i.e. segregration is not selected for. As far as evolution of humans is concerned, offspring of people of different races are not "weedy and less likely to thrive" as in the butterfly example, but quite the contrary. So from a biological point of view, we should not expect to find ourselves splitting into seperate species as there is no "reinforcement" (as mentioned in the article), but instead the opposite. Of course humans are still very much the same species, and are currently showing no signs of speciation, and comparing human races to butterfly species is stretching it.

2) Very little gene flow is needed to prevent speciation. One "mixed marriage" out of one hundred is plenty to keep genes flowing between subgroups within a species. This coupled with the above (the offspring being strong and healthy) makes it nearly inevitiable

3) Most people's concept of race is misguided. For example: Humans were originally black. So it's not surprising that there are people within all (eight?) major branches of our collective tree with black skin. Human movement and migration has lead to us all being much more related than you'd probably guess.

4) Timeframe: butterflies may have several generations each year. Even so, the researchers in the article don't appear to even witness speciation in action, but takes a snapshot and explains how it has occured. Speciation takes a long time. It's likely to take 100,000 years for humans to start showing signs of speciation, that is, if there was an evolutionary push towards it. Justifying racism on the basis that your great great great great great [25,000 "great"s removed to prevent this comment from violating the "postercomment" compression filter] great great great great great great great great great grandson or daughter may belong to a different species as the person next to you, is pretty fucking stupid.

I think you almost hit the mark. I can only speak for myself (and perhaps throw myself to the wolves in the process) but I find I'm not particularly attracted to females that are drastically different from Anglo-Saxon. I can look at a beautiful say.....black woman and see that she is indeed beautiful. But I'm not usually attracted to her. It's like looking at a fine work of art or other thing of beauty that doesn't inspire primal urges. I can appreciate her beauty without my baser instincts firing to say "ATTEMPT TO MATE!"

Don't get me wrong, I'm not racist. In fact in moving to VA I find the higher percentage of non-white folks refreshing and believe that interracial breeding will generally make better humans.

Just like "pure bred" dogs typically have horribly high tendencies to have breed-specific problems whereas mutts whose component breeds aren't even discernible live much longer and healthier. This coming from a guy who grew up in areas with lots of "pure bred" humans. *shudder*

However, in closing I wouldn't say racism is speciation. Racism is irrational, ignorant, stupid dislike of other races. Speciation is more what I'm talking about. How some people aren't attracted to other races may cause it among humans.

Racism is a *very* touchy subject, and I may get flamed just for bringing it up, but doesn't this sound like butterfly racism? If this were, in fact, a provable, natural, biological mechanism, then, wouldn't we, as biological organisms, be falling prety to much the same effect? Isn't racism a social form of speciation?

What impact would this have on the ACLU? Hiring quotas? The civil rights movement in general?

This article from the BBC is misleading. I tracked down the original article in Nature.

The researchers didn't actually unlock any major secrets. It is no secret that two species who would not produce viable offspring together will try to avoid mating with each other. There are various mechanisms for doing that - having different wing colors so that species can distinguish their optimal mating partners is one method. If the two species are geographically separated, there is no need to develop other methods of separation, and thus their wing colors can look similar. There is nothing new about this.

Also, the BBC article never explains that the speciation of these butterflies occurred while they were geographically separated (this is called allopatric speciation, and the Nature article specifically states that the butterflies evolved this way). The species only developed different wing markings when they came back into contact with each other. This makes a lot of sense - they were now genetically very different, and offspring between members of different species would not be successful, so they needed ways of telling each other apart.

It's a nice finding, but certainly not the unlocking of a major secret.

I've been wondering at something for quite some time that might be related to this discovery.

Why is it that animals that are "domesticated" or mostly live in close cooperation with human societies, like pigeons, develop highly variegated markings?

Think about it, cats, dogs, chickens, pigeons, cows, all of these exhibit wild variation in marking and coloration when they live with humans. Even humans themselves seem to have more variability when compared to other primates.

Perhaps human ecosystems and breeding have removed other pressures so the marking variations are more likely to express? I dunno. Just an observation. Any geneticists or evolutionary theorist out there have any ideas about this?

Think about it, cats, dogs, chickens, pigeons, cows, all of these exhibit wild variation in marking and coloration when they live with humans. Even humans themselves seem to have more variability when compared to other primates.

It's just because of selective breeding. If you let different dog breeds mate then after a few generations then they tend towards the "basic dog" type.

For a more detailed and accurate description take a look at the Wikipedia article on mixed-breed dogs [wikipedia.org].

Let me explain evolution... theres specie Geek, the Vi x Emacs force a species split up. Then we've got Vi Geek and Emacs Geek, after couple years they can't even talk to each other anymore, the Vi Geek always trying some cryptic commands and the Emacs Geek mutating more fingers to type even bigger key-chords...
it's the same with butterflies I think... RGB Butterfly, CMYK Butterfly...

The team, from Harvard University, US, discovered that closely related species living in the same geographical space displayed unusually distinct wing markings.

These wing colours apparently evolved as a sort of "team strip", allowing butterflies to easily identify the species of a potential mate.

Hrm. I watched Mississippi Burning last night and one thing that struck me dumbfounded was the irrational hatred towards blacks shown by the white protagonists in the film.

That article makes me wonder whether racial hatred is in part inspired by this "team strip" concept in the butterflies. In other words, the white protagonists are acting on their animal instincts to use "reinforcement" (as the article calls it) to encourage speciation.

I'm aware there are countless other factors involved in racial bigotry, including the fact that the white supremacists are a bunch of pathetic losers, but I'm always interested in scientific rationales for seemingly irrational behaviour.

Evolution isn't a "theory" in that sense of the word, any more than the theory of gravity is "just a theory". Both are fact as far as the scientific community is concerned.
And what could be worse than hell? Could it be ignorance?

Evolution is a fact. It has been observed in the fossil record, and observed in the present day. A "theory" of evolution seeks to explain how evolution occurs, i.e. the mechanism by which evolution takes place*. Darwin's theory of evolution was based on natural selection, and seems to be the accepted theory these days. Perhaps some day it will be discredited. But evolution will still exist.

*Note the parallels with gravitation: gravitational attraction between objects is a fact. Theories of gravitation seek to explain how that attraction works, thus allowing us to make predictions about how systems under the influence of gravity will evolve over time.

Evolution is a fact. It has been observed in the fossil record, and observed in the present day.

"Observation" proves anything. For hundreds of years everyone "observed" that a heavy stone falls faster than a feather. The Scientific Method proves things:
http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/Appendi xE/AppendixE.html [rochester.edu]
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of

"Macro" evolution is nothing but a large number of "micro" evolution steps piled together.

Most creationist will agree that this butterfly "anomaly" when the butterfly becomes a bird

Standard rediculous creationist claim. Under evolution nothing can become anything other than a variation of what it already was. For example cats: house cats, lions, tigers, pathers, lynx, cheetah, jaguar, puma, they are all cats. Across the entire cat family they are clearly separated by nothing but a bunch of "micro" evolutions. Lions and tigers are seperated by different hair patterns and a handful of other trivial differences. In fact lions and tigers can even interbreed. A house cat is seperated from the cheetah merely by a larger number of "micro" evolutions. They are simply a diverging branching tree from some original cat. The entire existing cat tree converges on a single ancestor roughtly 10 million years ago. [pipex.com] A cat cannot become a dog. Working backwards over a far longer time span, the cat family and dog family and bear family and raccoon family are all branches from a common carnovour ancestor around 40 or 50 million years ago. There are merely four or five times as many "micro" evolutions between cats and dogs as there are between house cats and cheetahs. Again woring backwards cats and cows and dolphins and humans are all mammals. They are simply a diverging branching tree from some original mammal roughly 220 million years ago.

A butterfly cannot become a bird any more than a dolphin can become a fish. However dolphins are a perfect examply of just how far one one thing (a mammal) can diverge into something that "completely different" and look a lot like a fish after 220 million years of "micro" evolutions. Given 220 million years worth of "micro" evolution, yes some butterfly will become something extremely "macro" different, it might even resemble a bird in the way a dolphin resembles a fish, but it will never be a bird.

Macro evolution is just a meaningless creationist term to wave away the mountain of scientific evidence that they can no longer deny. It's like attacking the theory of gravity because we have not yet seen Pluto make a full orbit. We first discovered pluto in 1930, and we will not see it complete an orbit until the year 2278. We will not see the Milky Way galaxy complete an orbit for about 228 million years. None of this weakens the theory of gravity.

It is one thing to teach that theories aren't solid. But it is quite another to teach that every theory is equally valid. There is an extensive fossil record, etc. for evolution. Does this mean that God couldn't have just planted it there to trick us? No. But at the same time if there is a "God" that would do that, then he could also reverse all of the laws of physics tomorrow. Does this mean that we should discredit them? No. We should simply teach that based on past observation, this is how the think x works. We aren't sure, but we have a lot more backing it up than we do for every other theory about x.

Zonk can still mate with Zonk and is still classified as Zonk but as we can tell he is beginning the split into a new species which won't maintain compatibility for long (people will have higher expectations of him).

Hold on here. I'm not going to in any way turn anti-Christian here but there are some misconceptions I'd like to clear up, not with your post but in general since you brought up the topic. First of all, evolution exists. Every year humans slowly but surely get taller. It happens. Evolution is a varifiable fact. Second, it's exactly like you said. There's no reason religion and science need to clash with eachother. If you view genetic mutation as the will of God, everything works out just fine.

I don't mean to seem condesending but I taught a class for my chruch's bible school this summer. I was teaching 6th and 7th graders. The material I was supposed to present to them would have easily been disproven by any 4th grade science textbook (well maybe not one from Kentucky). The worst part was that the kids were clueless. I asked how long ago they thought Jesus died. One of them in all seriousness thought Jesus died 30 years ago. Yeah that's right, we love Jesus because he stopped Hitler!!! I told them Jesus was a Jew and they didn't believe me till I got a Bible to show them. I'm sorry. I don't know if it's bad parenting or what but if we're to have an open discussion on evolution or any other subject that's touchy for the chruch we need to have some basic understanding about religion itself.

As the AC pointed out, height increases are due to improvements in nutrition (mostly increases in protein) and have nothing to do with genetics. This is an easily verified fact; many immigrant families have children much larger than their parents, and children don't grow as big in countries where famines occur.

(And, as awful as it is for many that subscribe to other faiths or no faith at all, millions may perish one day soon).

Yea... Millions... Except, more.

There are, roughly, 1 billion Christian/Protestants in the world. Ther are, roughly 1 billion Christian/Catholics in the world. Now because of their tradition and some more unique views (Catholics believe in 'good works', etc vs modern protestants believe more in a pure faith.. And mormons, that have added significantly to the base religions(a whole new tes

>"But speciation has never been observed" has been the strongest rallying cry of evolution-deniers for more than a century...

And it has been a falsehood for at least half that time. Speciation has been observed in both the field an in the lab... repeatedly. Creationists trumpet the no observed speciation line until they are called on it, and then it becomes, "But they're still [fruit flies, fish, whatever]," The moving goal posts are the hallmark of creationism.

Remember, the "scientists" at the Institution for Creation Research have to sign an oath that nothing they "discover" will ever conflict with a litteral interpretation of the Bible.

Different races probably would have eventually evolved into different species if they'd been and remained isolated for another million years or so (unlikely), but the amount of "intermingling" is now dramatically on the rise, and seemingly set only to increase, so it seems unlikely that it will ever happen now. But no races have ever really been truly isolated anyway... global trade and travel etc. have been going on all the time for thousands of years.

I agree. The BBC report seems confusing and explains the after effect of speciation (distinct wing markings) as the cause of speciation and as being useful because it prevents hybridisation.

But prior to divergence it wouldn't be hybridisation.

I suspect it's just poor wording on the reporter's part and the full story is something like:

There are butterflies of different species present in the same area. In order to prevent hybridisation they select mates on the basis of wing pattern. Some members of a species develop an abnormal wing-pattern. Although they _could_ breed with other members of the species, the inbuilt preference for mating with similarly-striped partners means they only mate with each other. This isolation of their genetic pool leads to an accumulation of mutations which make it impossible to breed with their ex-species. Now they are a new species.

(Also, I though hybridisation could be useful when there wasn't enough genetic variability in the parent populations.)

There is no genetic diversity once a 'breed' is established, I would imagine. They are bred to have the same physical and mental attributes each and every generation. They are bred to be the same as they have been established, which means no more diverging from the main K-9 line.

On a side note, this sort of in-breeding and gene stagnation has negative evolutionary consequences. Although the dog might be 'fit' to reproduce now since humans do the selecting and breeding, it is less and less fit to survive

Ah. Well, as you are neither a creationist your own beliefs, nor, it would seem, are you interested in discussing the actual article...Logic would dictate that you are merely posting deliberately contentious material to stimulate. You are then, by definition, a troll. [wikipedia.org]

2) Second law of thermodynamics. While another somewhat weak argument in the eyes of many evolution proponents, the significance of a mutation actually increasing the intellectual properties of an organism would be a major scientific find of unbelievable proportions and would indicate that our analysis of closed systems needs to be rethought. Specifically, I'm talking about DNA and the "information argument". Species don't just get smarter, yet it is clear that we are more intelligent than dogs, for instance. The hard part is determining *why*.

Numerous issues with this one. First it is wrong to think of evolution of lifeforms as increasingly getting "smarter" or "better". If an attribute provides a survival or propagation advantage it will be selected and maintained. If being dumber presents a survival advantage then this quality will be selected.

As far as the second law arguement, as is noted in various places, life on planet earth is not a closed system. Life just inserts itself within the chain of energy conversion path (Solar to Low Level Heat) and constantly generates entropy while doing so.

Consider a thought experiment. Say you have a Bingo style box with several different shaped balls being batted around by an air stream. If you cut in the top of the box a hole that conforms to one of the balls, say a triangle shape, you would constantly decrease in entropy in the state of the balls since you would be filtering out the triangle shaped balls and increasing order within the system. However if you consider the complete system including the power to drive the balls you have a total increase in the entropy by converting high quality electral energy into low quality heat. In the above, example the hole in the top of the box is akin to natural selection as it is a filter that differentially selects a quality combine replication and well you know...

Another examples exists of unclosed systems becoming increasingly ordered (lower entropy) such as different size rock on the beach with wave action.

2) Second law of thermodynamics. While another somewhat weak argument in the eyes of many evolution proponents, the significance of a mutation actually increasing the intellectual properties of of an organism would be a major scientific find of unbelievable proportions and would indicate that our analysis of closed systems needs to be rethought. Specifically, I'm talking about DNA and the "information argument". Species don't just get smarter, yet it is clear that we are more intelligent than dogs, for instance. The hard part is determining *why*.

Simple, energy is being put into the system by the sun. The total system to be considered is the whole of the local solar system. There, entropy is increasing, but because there is a flow of energy to the earth, there is a mechanism that can allow the local entropy on the earth to decrease. There is no conflict here, you just need to consider a bigger system than just the planet.

5) Spontaneous generation. It's never been proven

That's because it doesn't happen, and has never happened. Life on earth doesn't depend on SG, it depends on a very slow process that went from inorganic to organic chemistry to some form of self-replicating system (not DNA, that is a much later evolution of whatever came first). There is probably no evidence to be found for this because as a process it took place an incredibly long time ago on a very different earth - all traces wil lhave been long obliterated. And besides, the emergence of life after the formation of the earth took a mind-bogglingly long time, which indicates that whatever this process was, it was either very slow or very chancy. Odds are this will always remain a mystery - we have to accept that there are some things that can never be known, only speculated about

because we *could* be the 1 in septendecillion instance

This is the "weak anthropic principle". We could be the only life in the universe. Why us? Because we are here to observe it, so nothing else could observe it. It's a definite possibility.

Evolution of the eye. We have no indication of how or why the eye evolved

Oh, that old chestnut. The eye has evolved separately numerous times, and is actually pretty obvious! Read Dawkins. The eye is so obviously useful for a creature's survival that its evolution is more or less guaranteed. More difficult to answer would be subtler thing such as sexual reproduction, etc.
Evolution of the vertebrae

Not sure why this one should be tricky. The vertebra is easy to undertand from the point of view of mechanical efficiency when propelling oneself through water. Tiny creatures experience water as a viscous medium but as they grow larger then simple propulsion methods such as cilia or flagellae become very inefficient. Hence muscle will tend to evolve from the motility cells, but muscle will work best when it has a framework to work with and so that will co-evolve - this has happened twice at least - insects evolved exoskeletons and animals evolved endoskeletons. The endo- route proved more suitable for even larger creatures and a simple way for a creature to get larger is to replicate parts of its existing structures - it's easy to imagine how a gene for building a vertebra could mutate and get expressed twice and so there were then two vertebrae, and so on. I don't see how any particular body part every "disproves" evolution. Usually their very ad-hoc-ness tends to show that a natural process is at work. If bodies had been designed there are many things that could be drastically simplified for no loss of function.
Macro-evolution is not falsifiable. If something is not falsiable, like creation for instance, it's considered part of a belief system or religion.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by macro-evolution not being falsifiable. It has not been observed taking place yet - speciation at any rate. But macro-evolution is observable - it's all around us in every different living creature. The key

Here is the detailed Index of Creationist Claims [talkorigins.org] which provides short answers to a very large number of oft-claimed claims. Each has the terminology and links to allow a much fuller exploration of the answer.

Very well-written and filled with references29 Evidences for Macroevolution FAQ [talkorigins.org]. For each of the 29+ evidences, they provide predictions and ways to falsify the claim.

Arguments that even creationist themselves have said should be retired as arguments. [answersingenesis.org] Interesting how many of these arguments still get used.

For your specific points, these are very common questions / issues from creationists and others (except the bone question), so the Index is useful:

7) Evolution of the eye. We have no indication of how or why the eye evolved. Likewise, we have no indication of why there are creatures that have existed for 50 million years, like bats, and have been blind for the entire period.

This is just one of those arguments that have absolutely no basis in science or common sense, yet keeps getting repeated because no one has bothered to stop and think about it. Basic light sensativity (the kind that exists in single-celled organisms) is better than none at all. Color sensativity is better than basic light sensativity. Color sensativity with a very crude lense (only partially focused) is better than no lense at all. And an entire, perfectly focused eye is better than a half-focused eye. If you doubt these things, just think about how much very basic information an eye supplies--the time of day, the movement of a predator, the color of a poisonous plant, etc. There is no mystery, only a basic origin (a light sensative cell) and a chain of cumulative improvements.

Some animals (though not bats) are blind, probably for brainpower reasons. Visual processing takes a lot of energy, energy that could be redirected into other endevors, such as sound/smell processing or greater intelligence. If little is to be gained by sight, for instance if a creature spends its entire life underground or in deep ocean, then there really isn't a strong evolutionary incentive to keep (or develop) those eyeballs.

Your other arguments are fairly moot, too, but this one is a pet peeve of mine. For all the logic it contains, you might as well say that the ocean is conclusive proof that lakes don't exist.